IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. IE-30, NO.

2, MAY 1983 113

for T = 0.76, 1.46, and 2.09. For T= 2.09, the objective

speed could not be obtained rapidly. For T = 0.76, overshoot
occurred. For T = 1.46, the objective speed was obtained
rapidly without overshoot; this is the optimal value.
1 -6
:-l- Additionally, in the general running test, we enjoyed
/ 's ~~~~T 29.09 satisfactory driving without any problem.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
13 ilt 12 -20 2 The cruise-control system configuration, operations,
LTni (c ) simulation, and nonlinear system stability are discussed.
Fig. 18. Speed response. The microprocessor provides a highly precise control and
enables complicated logical operations.
The maximum gain is obtained at T = 1.4 s for TFV = The authors have developed a microprocessor cruise-control
0.1 s. system with new features, such as preset, transmission control,
Fig. 17 shows the ECU frequency characteristics when T and fail-safe functions.
is fixed at 1.4 s. For TF = 0.1 s, the ECU gain can be set The authors are now committed to the goal of developing
to 8 dB or less at 3 Hz of speed-signal fluctuation frequency. and producing an easier-to-use, more precise, microprocessor-
The values in Table III satisfy the ECU parameter optimiza- controlled system for motor vehicles.
tion conditions previously described. REFERENCES
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS [I] K. Tanigawa, "Cruise control system (Auto drive)," Fujitsu. vol.
30, no. 5, 1979.
Fig. 18 shows the speed response obtained while the vehicle [21 T. Ochiai, "Cruise control system," Systems and Control, vol. 24,
no. 5, 1980.
was being accelerated with the thumb wheel preset to 80 [31 J. E. Gibson, Nonlinear Automatic Control. New York: McGraw-
km/h. Tests were conducted with B = 10 and TFV = 0.1 Hill, 1968.

Microprocessor-Based Control of Engine Valve Timing

PEDRO ALBERTOS, MEMBER, IEEE, JUAN J. SERRANO, JUAN A. DE LA PUENTE, MEMBER, IEEE, ALFONS CRESPO,
FRANCISCO PAYRI, JOSE M. DESANTES, FRANCISCO BOADA, JUSTO NIETO, FRANCISCO J. FUEMAYOR,
AND SALVADOR BRESO

Abstract-One of the most interesting ways of improving the low- The structure of the microcomputer controller and an outline of the
speed performance of spark-ignition engines is the variation of the software are presented in this paper for both a premilinary and a fi'nal
valve timing in order to reduce mechanical losses. design.
This paper deals with the implementation of valve-timing control by A summary of the experimental work carried out is included, to-
means of a microprocessor-based system which can be used to adapt gether with the main conclusions drawn to date.
the inlet and exhaust times to the operating conditions on the engine.
The measured variables are manifold pressure, crankshaft speed,
and throttle position. Control variables are the opening and closing I. INTRODUCTION
angles on inlet and exhaust valves. These are acted upon by means of a T HIS PAPER shows a new application of microprocessors to
four-bar mechanism driven by electrical motors.
Control angles are determined by the microcomputer from the control the distribution of a spark-ignition engine (SIE) in
desired power (throttle position), and the measured engine speed, by order to improve its performance by lowering pump losses.
means of a stored model. The controller acts directly upon the valve- These losses, due to load renovation process, are caused be-
control mechanism. In this way, an optimal distribution law can be cause inner cylinder pressures are larger during the exhaust
adjusted for every operating condition, resulting in mechanical loss stroke than during the admission stroke.
reduction and improvement of engine performance at low speeds.
Pump losses take on greater importance when the engine
works at partial loads, so the control system requirements are
Manuscript received June 7, 1982; revised December 20, 1982. to produce a load loss in the inlet pipe of the engine. This load
This work was supported in part by the Comision Asesora de Investiga- loss causes a pressure decrease in "the admission stroke," such
ci6n Cientifica y Tecnica of the Spanish government.
The authors are with the Escuela Tecnica Superior de Ingenieros that the negative work loop is increased. If we refer to a Euro-
Industriales, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Apdo. 2012, Valencia, pean cycle as representative of the average load on an engine
Spain. placed in a vehicle, the engine will work with a rate less than
0278-0046/83/0500-0113$01 .00 © 1983 IEEE

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 114 IE4EE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. IE-30, NO. 2, MAY 1983
25 percent for 40 percent of its working period, which gives engine
LOAD-RATE a1 speed
us an idea of how important it is to reduce pump losses for MICRO- SPARK
partial loads. PRC ACTUATOR LGNITION
The objective of this research consists of replacing the clas- iSYSTEM 0 2ENGINE
sic fuel-air distribution system (independent from load rate
and engine speed) by a system controlled with microprocessors, throttle valve
which allows control over angles of opening and closing inlet
valves. Fig. 1. Block diagram of the system to be controlled.
In this way, it is possible to control the time in which the
valve is open, based on load-r/min considerations. Pulle
mobile shaft
In this paper, the control system is described presenting
first the system to be controlled with the various elements in- Camshaft
B2
volved in the system. Subsequently, control of the system using
a microprocessor is described.
II. SYSTEM TO BE CONTROLLED Di
AOBO
A. Block Diagramn
Fig. 1 shows a block diagram of the system to be controlled. 1Al Crankshaft
Basically, we are going to control open-close angles 0 2 B ~C
mobile
of the inlet valve, according to load rate : and engine speed n *
I ~~~~~~~~~shaf
t
of the motor. This scheme requires a mechanical actuator that Pulley h f

allows us to change the inlet valve open-close angle.

After some previous experiments, optimal angles for each
engine speed and load rate have been determined. An actua- Pulley
tor of this kind will reduce pump losses.
In general, it can be said that with a greater load rate, the Motor D.C.
angle in which the valve remains open must be greater, and Fig. 2. Actuator scheme (not in scale).
with a larger engine speed, the angle in which the valve is open
has to be in advance. speed
The microprocessor system as a function of the inlet, load rate

rate, and engine speed variables will read positions 0l, 02 ac- CL
co
cording to optimal a1, a2 values on a table, and if it is neces-
sary, will set the throttle valve on a specific place.
B. Actuator Characteristics
The actuator is the kinematic chain shown in Fig. 2. On the
crankshaft, a speed reducer is placed (reduction index 2)
allowing change of the output movement with respect to the 1

input movement. Such a mechanism is based on a gear train

consisting of gear wheels A, B, C, D. The mobile shaft con-
necting wheels B and C can be moved with center in the input
shaft by means of a dc motor and a worm gear. The angular
phase shift is controlled with the position of the dc motor.
The reducer-phaseshift output shaft is connected to a mo-
bile shaft by means of the distribution chain with both having
the same speed. This shaft is connected to the camshaft
through a four-bar mechanism.
The four-bar mechanism is a nonhomokinetical joint. Such
that the instantaneous speed relation is not constant, input
and output speeds are the same when the bar A-B is parallel to
the fixed bar AO-Bo. When the mechanism goes from position
1 to 2, the input-output speed relation is greater than 1. On
the other hand, when going from 2 to 1, this relation is less
than 1. By changing the length of the fixed bar e, the input-
output speed relation is obtained as shown in Fig. 3.
If valve movement is inserted in the area of speed greater
than one, the total opening angle will be less than in normal
conditions.
By changing the fixed bar length e, the total opening angle
- a.
o
-180
Four bar output angle
+180I
Fig. 3. Input-output speed relation in four-bar mechanism.
of the valve can be changed. Fig. 4 shows the intake-valve lift
as a function of e values.
The change of the fixed bar e length is achieved displacing
one of its ends by means of a ball screw coupled to a dc motor.
With the reducer-phaseshift mechanism, it is possible to
shift valve-lift diagrams. With both mechanisms, therefore, it
is possible to modify open-close angles.
C. Sensors
The engine-speed measure is made by using a magnetic
pickup sensor set into the motor flywheel. This gives one im-
pulse for each tooth. If the number of teeth is high, a better
accuracy for the engine-speed measure is obtained with low
sampling time.
Load-rate measurement is made through a potentiometer
position sensor fed by a stabilized and constant power source.

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 ALBERTOS et al.: MICROPROCESSOR CONTROL OF ENGINE VALVE TIMING 115
10.0
=0%
intake / a 25%
valve e= 50%
lift
lift
~~~~~~=
75%
(11~~~~
e 100%v
(mm) ;

tI ,

0.0 (
0 180 360
Four bar input angle
Fig. 4. Valve-lift diagrams.
Fig. 5. Block diagram of the first design.
For the two dc motors controlling the actuator input po-
sition, positioning sensors of the type incremental optical en- Power up
coder set to motor turnshaft are used. The encoder set out at-
tacks a direction detector and a counter circuit. I
System initialization

D. Practical Remarks System control loop

As distributional variation mechanism is not enough to Read load rate and engine speed
control SIE for any load rate or engine speed, it is required to _r I
aid the system with the throttle valve. In order not to have to Look up intable 91 and 92 values
place a throttle valve positioning sensor, and in order to simplify Computed throttle position
its control, this valve will be operated through a stepping Control new position of d.c. motors
motor, controlled by the microprocessor according to the two
input variables. This will actually operate only for low load
rates. Fig. 6. Dimensional flowchart of the main program.
III. ENGINE CONTROL SYSTEM
The control system consists of a section which, with the 1) it starts the processor and programmable I/O peripherals;
input variables engine speed and load rate, computes the po- 2) it carries out initial hardware test program;
sition references corresponding to the actuator and throttle 3) it puts the initial positions and values in the actuator
valves, two dc motor position control systems, and a throttle and variables.
valve actuator. Once the system is working properly, it will go on with the
control loop. First it reads input variables: load rates from the
A. Hardware A/D converter and engine speed. According to these values,
The first design used a single 8-bit microprocessor to con- 0 1 and 0 2 values are looked up from the table, and with those,
trol the system. A block diagram is shown in Fig. 5. the microprocessor gives the proper control signals so that dc
The microprocessor is the Intel 8085A, and the different motors run to the computed reference position. If required,
I/O and timers are peripherals for the 82XX family compatible the computer also determines the correct throttle valve po-
with this microprocessor. sition.
Position control of the dc motors has been done by means Once the system is placed at the new operating point, the
of pulse-width modulation. The pulse width is computed as a cycle begins again.
function of reference position and the actual position which is
read from an encoder with an up-down counter. VI. RELIABILITY-LAST DESIGN
Internal timer clocks provide an accurate time base for each System reliability depends mainly on actuators since a sys-
operation in the microprocessor. tem failure or poor operation would have important conse-
In PROM memory, besides the program, a table where 0i quences.
and 02 are computed from load rate and engine speed is stored. To increase reliability and system performance, it was re-
These 01 and 02 values correspond to the input value point quired to separately control the dc motor's position so as to be
with the optimal values of the opening and closing points of always under control. For that reason, this system was designed
the inlet valve. again to obtain a better reliability and operation speed.
B. Software A. Design Stages
The general structure of the program is shown in the di- To design the last systems, the steps followed have been:
mensional flowchart of Fig. 6. a) identification of all possible failures; b) selection of re-
The system initialization subprogram carries out three dundant systems; c) analysis and selection of test points to
functions: check subsystems performance; and d) analysis and selection

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 116 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. IE-30, NO. 2, MAY 1983
Power up
I
System initialization

Microprocessor and peripheral

initialization
Initial test program
Positioning initial values

£
Measurement loop

Read load rate and engine speed

- Look up in table 91 and g2 values
Exchange new position values
Compute throttle position
Concurrent test program

Fig. 9. Flowchart software for the 8085A system.

Position control loop

Read position from encoder-couinter

Read reference position

Compute error position

Compute impulse with

Fig. 8. Control system block diagram. Output control signal

of the hardware and software system in order to detect any Position subsystem test program
failure.
To accomplish the last point it is required: a) to concur-
rently detect possible failure on each control loop; b) to detect Fig. 10. Flowchart software for the UPI-41 Peripheral.
off-line failures with position variable adjustment each time a
specific operation point is reached; and c) to check redundant A complete control system block diagram is shown in Fig. 8.
parts. This diagram is divided into three parts. The biggest one is
Finally, modifications on hardware and software are required related to the data acquisition and reference search. The other
to diagnose failures and subsequently to reconfigure the sys- two parts are the dc motor position control subsystems with
tem. The reconfiguration is mainly based on automatic replace- the UPI41 peripheral.
ment of redundant parts, and on a restart to a given point.
C. Software
B. Control Schemes In the control system three concurrent tasks are performed.
For the position control of dc motors, a universal program- The main program corresponding to the 8085A system is re-
mable peripheral of Intel, the UPI41, is used, which is com- lated to the flowchart shown in Fig. 9. This flowchart is very
patible with 8085A microprocessor. These peripherals control similar to the previous design, although in this case the meas-
the position of dc motors in parallel with the 8085A micro- urement loop will be faster than the last design; the micro-
processor operation. processor 8085A does not control the dc motors directly.
Each position control loop is as shown in Fig. 7. The other two programs executed by the UPI41 peripheral
The UPI41 peripheral exchanges with the microprocessor's have the structure shown in Fig. 10.
8085A program the following kinds of signals: a) values of po-
sition reference, from 8085A to the peripheral; b) state signals VI. CONCLUSIONS
from the tests done by the peripheral and sent to 8085A micro- The problem of mechanical loss reduction in spark-ignition
processor; and c) microprocessor 8085A orders to the peripheral engines has been dealt with, and a solution based on valve-
in case of failure in the 8085A system. timing control has been presented. A microprocessor-based

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. IE-30, NO. 2, MAY 1983 117

implementation of this solution has been described, with most REFERENCES

attention devoted to reliability problems.
At this preliminary stage of design, the main parts of a first
prototype have been built. These include a single-cylinder en-
gine installed on a test bench, with suitable measurement in-
strumentation, as well as the microcomputer system and inter-
faces. A modeling and simulation of the four-bar mechanism
and optimal valve-timing adjustments have been performed. A
final assembly based on these results is expected to be opera-
tional shortly.
[1] K. Ikeura, A. Hosaka, and T. Yano, "Microprocessor control
brings about better fuel economy with good drivability,'' Society of
Automotive Engineers, paper no. 800056.
[2] T. Toyoda, T. Inoue, T. Yaegashi, and K. Acki, "Electronic
engine control systems for the smaller passenger car," Society of
Automotive Engineers, paper no. 800894.
[3] UPI41 User's Manual, Intel, Santa Clara, CA.
[4] 8085 User's Manual, Intel, Santa Clara, CA.
[5] A. D. Toelle, "Microprocessor control of the automobile engine,"
Society of Automotive Engineers, paper no. 770008.
[6] A. Avizienis, "Fault tolerance: The survival attribute of digital
systems," Proc. IEEE, vol. 66, no. 10, Oct. 1978.

A Real-Time Engine Simulator Using Multiple

Microcomputers
JUAN R. PIMENTEL, MEMBER, IEEE, AND MICHAEL T. LOEFFLER, MEMBER, IEEE

Abstract-A multiple microcomputer system which is useful for approaches used for real-time simulation: analog, digital, and
real-time simulation of both complex and fast response systems has
hybrid (a combination of analog and digital).
been designed and constructed. Interprocessor communication be- Latest developments in microprocessor and microcomputer
tween five microprocessors is done in parallel using direct memory
technologies add a new dimension to real-time digital simula-
access techniques. Tests on system performance indicate that it is
tion. The advances have been so phenomenal that it is now
capable of fast processing element execution times and fast inter-
processor message transfers. possible to buy an integrated circuit that has a central proces-
The system was used to simulate a spark-ignition internal combus-
sing unit, enough memory to hold most practical programs,
tion engine in real time. The simulation provides manifold pressure,
analog to digital converter, timers, and input/output (I/O)
net torque, engine speed in response to throttle angle, spark advance,
ports. These circuits, called microcomputers, are revolutioniz-
exhaust gas recirculation, and load torque inputs. The engine simula-
ing design concepts is several engineering areas. Moreover,
tion model was decomposed into four sections: carburetor, intake
microcomputers are designed in such a way that they can be
manifold, combustion, and dynamics. Potential applications of the
engine simulator include the development of control algorithms and
interconnected in any array configuration (multiple micro-
engine designs. computers) to perform more difficult tasks.
I. INTRODUCTION If one could decompose the system under simulation into
functional units such that each unit could be simulated by one
i YSTEM SIMULATION has been useful in engineering microcomputer, then it appears that multiple microcomputers
13design for various reasons: first, the designer might want are very promising for real-time simulation. The main advan-
to know how the designed system behaves in different situa- tage of using multiple microcomputers is that they increase
tions [1]; and second, simulation is used as a tool for the system throughput. In simulation they can be used to decrease
design process [2] -[4]. Real-time simulation consists of processing time and achieve real-time simulation. The object
obtaining the simulated variables in the same time frame that of this paper is to present a multiple microcomputer hardware
the actual variables evolve in the system being simulated. The configuration for real-time engine simulation. The simulator,
relationship among all variables involved in the simulation is which consists of an array of five microcomputers, simulates
given by a model for the system. There are basically three a spark-ignited, internal combustion engine.
Manuscript received June 1, 1982; revised December 22, 1982. II. SIMULATION OF AN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE
J. R. Pimentel is with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, GMI Engineering and Management Institute (formerly Automotive vehicle simulation is useful in several stages of
General Motors Institute, General Motors Corporation), Flint, MI the automobile process. Gilmore [3] considered an analog
48502.
M. T. Loeffler is with Pontiac Motor Division, General Motors simulation for a hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle in order to
Corporation, Pontiac, MI 48053. study the effects of engine size, electric motor size, flywheel
0278-0046/83/0500-01 17$01.00 © 1983 IEEE

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